in 1980s, people called us &80's generation&. However now we have met some embarrasse in our life. For example, the diploma of univ Just graduated, workless follo
The house for us likes a moon have no way to touch. As far as I am concered, I was ever an outstanding student in the campus, however, when I began to look for the job, I started to understand the meaning of competition. How to describe it? Let me give you an instance. I joined many recruitments, before it, I prepared for twenty copies of resumes. On the spot, I think the jam I needn't to say, everyone who joined it would have the same feeling. Besides, the resume likes a stone sank to the sea, there always no feedback to you. Because in two days the company recruiter would receive thousands of resumes and almost everyone have the diploma of the university. Supply far exceeds demand. If you have no experience it certainly will neglect by the recruiter. After we worked for two years, we thought to buy a house. However, the price has rised sharply as we looked a skyscraper, day day update. Finally, we can't afford it and can but rent it. The more than half money we earned have distributed to the landlord. The surplus only can meet our life. What is the good life for us? Twenty years ago,“属于我，属于你，属于八十年 代的新一辈“，fifteen years ago,“太阳是我们的，太阳是我们的，月亮……”，ten years ago,“让我们期待明 天会更好！”，eight years ago,“不经历风雨，则么能见彩虹，没 有人能随随便便成功”，and now.“我闭上眼睛就成天黑”。部分中文译文 + 英语原文全文 中国&自我的一代& “我们更自我。我们为自己而活，这样很好。我们必须有能力为经济发展做贡献。这是 我们这一代帮助国家的方式。 ” 6 个好朋友在周五晚上聚在了一起，海鲜应有尽有，大家谈笑风生。玛丽亚?张戴着大 大的耳环， 穿着紧身天鹅绒夹克， 脸上化着精致的妆容， 开始描述人人都在谈论的一个小岛， 那个小岛位于泰国东部沿海。她说，那儿的潜水棒极了，有很多中国人，根本就不必担心语 言问题。她的朋友维姬?杨正弯腰盯着一台借来的笔记本电脑，把一个吹毛求疵的客户的电 子邮件下载到手机里。杨小姐是一家咨询公司的精算师，今晚必须完成一个方案。在她给同事打电话时，餐桌上的话题已经从滑雪(“我大概摔了上百次”)转移到不同型号的 iPod 的优 缺点(比如， “Shuffle 不好”)，然后又讨论起信用卡在中国的暴增。 类似这样的话题讨论反映出如今一些 20 多岁的中国年轻人的现状。 在中国，30 岁以下的成年人约 3 亿，这一群体已成为连接曾经封闭排外的中国，与正 在变成全球经济大国的“新新中国”之间的桥梁。中国年轻人是这个国家当前经济腾飞的推 动者和主要受益者。据瑞士信贷第一波士顿最近的一项调查，年龄在 20～29 岁的中国人的 收入，在过去 3 年间上涨了 34%，远高于其他年龄段。去调查一下当今中国的城市年轻人， 你会发现他们喝星巴克，穿耐克，沉迷于写博客。 对于一个曾去过到处还是蓝制服和人民公社的中国的外国人来说， 要改变观念， “如 接受 今中国是一个青年精英们聚集的国家”的看法着实不易。1981 年，我第一次到中国时，和 两个旅伴去上海的人民公园。外交部给我们配备的“导游”带领我们从一个“外国朋友”专 用入口进去。一群中国人聚集在外面，当我们通过时，有几个人大声抱怨说公园的某些部分 只向外国人开放太不公平。 我的一个同伴用中文口若悬河地表示赞同。 立刻就有一群年轻男 女将我们围住， 叽叽喳喳地向我们提了一堆既幼稚又热切的问题： 美国还有奴隶吗？你在哪 里学的中文？所有的美国家庭真的都有 3 部车吗？你能帮我去美国吗？ 那场讨论发生在 25 年前。我那时遇到的那些天真谨慎的中国人，也许就是文章开头提 及的北京海鲜宴会上的那群年轻人的父母。但无论从外表、态度、生活经历、教育，还是对 未来的梦想来看， 在上海人民公园里的那群年轻人， 与杨小姐和她的朋友们都毫无共同之处。 最大的变化在人口方面。 由于中国的独生子女政策， 这是世界历史上第一代以独生子女 为主的群体，这一群体的自我倾向受到了消费主义、互联网和电子游戏的刺激。与此同时， 今天的中国年轻人比上一辈人受过更好的教育、 更国际化。 “文革” 在 中成长起来的一代人， 往往只勉强念完高中，而今天有大约 1/4 的中国人在 20 岁左右就进入了大学。 杨小姐身上体现了中国年轻人的那种变化。她是一个目标明确的 29 岁的精算师，很少 笑，但热衷于参加派对。她和她的朋友们经常聚餐或泡吧，几乎不在家里吃饭。 在男朋友、滑雪爱好者王宁(音译)的鼓励下，杨小姐在年初决定开始学习这项运动。她 去了北京南部一家价格昂贵的购物中心购买滑雪装备。她选了一块由美国科罗拉多 Never Summer 公司生产的、闪闪发亮的全新滑雪板，上面装饰着色彩艳丽的蝴蝶图案， 加上手套、 护目镜和其他随身用具，全套新装备共花去她 700 美元。当被问到花一大笔钱，为一项她也 许永远不会参加的运动置办装备是否值得时，她说： “我认为你在决定开始一项新爱好时， 就必须准备充分。 ” 像杨小姐和她的朋友们一样的中国年轻人代表了时代潮流， 他们是大批年轻而拥有雄心 壮志的消费开路先锋。放眼中国，像这样的年轻专业人士的谈论话题离不开博客、旅行、工 作与生活的平衡。如果他们还买不起 700 美元的滑雪装备，他们也希望能尽快拥有。 在那家海鲜餐厅，餐盘都被清理下去了，新鲜水果和茶水被端上来，大家都变得若有所 思。 “我们比父母要幸运多了。 ”张小姐说，她在北京最高级的俱乐部之一当人事经理， “我的父母亲自己什么也没有。他们为我而活。 ”王宁自己拥有一家相当成功的广告公司，他对 此也很赞同， “我们更自我。我们为自己而活，这样很好。我们必须有能力为经济发展做贡 献。那是我们贡献的力量。这是我们这一代帮助国家的方式。 ” China’s Me Generation Six friends out on a friday evening, the seafood plentiful, the conversation flowing. Maria Zhang ― big hoop earrings, tight velvet jacket and a good deal of meticulously applied makeup ― starts to describe an island that everyone is talking about off the east coast of Thailand. It has great diving, she says, and lots of Chinese there so you don’t have to worry about language. Her friend Vicky Yang is hunched over a borrowed laptop, downloading an e-mail from a pesky client on her cell phone. An actuary at a consulting firm, Vicky needs to close a project tonight. While she phones a colleague, the dinner-table conversation moves on to snowboarding (&I must have fallen a hundred times&) to the relative merits of various iPods (&Shuffle is no good&) and the sudden onrush of credit cards in China. Silence Chen, an account executive with advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather in Beijing, tells the group he recently received six different cards in the mail. &Each one has a credit limit of 10,000,& he says, laughing. &So suddenly I’m 60,000 yuan richer!& The talk turns to China’s online shopping business, before that is interrupted by the arrival of razor clams, chili squid and deep-fried grouper. The one subject that doesn’t come up ― and almost never does when this tight-knit group of friends gets together ― is politics. That sets them apart from previous generations of Chinese élites, whose lives were defined by the epic events that shaped China’s past half-century: the Cultural Revolution, the opening to the West, the student protests in Tiananmen Square and their subsequent suppression. The conversation at Gang Ji Restaurant suggests today ’ s twentysomethings are tuning all that out. &There’s nothing we can do about politics,& says Chen. &So there’s no point in talking about it or getting involved.& There are roughly 300 million adults in China under age 30, a demographic cohort that serves as a bridge between the closed, xenophobic China of the Mao years and the globalized economic powerhouse that it is becoming. Young Chinese are the drivers and chief beneficiaries of the country’s current boom: according to a recent survey by Credit Suisse First Boston, the incomes of 20- to 29-year-olds grew 34% in the past three years, by far the biggest of any age group. And because of their self-interested, apolitical pragmatism, they could turn out to be the salvation of the ruling Communist Party ― so long as it keeps delivering the economic goods. Survey young, urban Chinese today, and you will find them drinking Starbucks, wearing Nikes and blogging obsessively. But you will detect little interest in demanding voting rights, let alone overthrowing the country’s communist rulers. &On their wish list,& says Hong Huang, a publisher of several lifestyle magazines, &a Nintendo Wii comes way ahead of democracy.& The rise of China’s Me generation has implications for the foreign policies of other nations. Sinologists in the West have long predicted that economic growth would eventually bring democracy to China. As James Mann points out in his new book, The China Fantasy, the idea that China will evolve into a democracy as its middle class grows continues to underlie the U.S.’sChina policy, providing the central rationale for maintaining close ties with what is, after all, an unapologetically authoritarian regime. But China’s Me generation could shatter such long-held assumptions. As the chief beneficiaries of China’s economic success, young professionals have more and more tied up in preserving the status quo. The last thing they want is a populist politician winning over the country’s hundreds of millions of have-nots on a rural-reform, stick-it-to-the-cities agenda. All of which means democracy isn’t likely to come to China anytime soon. And that poses challenges for Western policymakers as they try to engage China without condoning the Communist Party’s record of political repression and its failures to improve the lives of the country’s rural poor. China watchers say the Me generation’s reluctance to agitate for reform is driven in part by a reluctance to tarnish China’s moment in the sun. &They are proud of what China has accomplished, and very positive about the government,& says P.T. Black, who conducts extensive marketing research for a Shanghai-based company called Jigsaw International. The political passivity of China’s new élite makes sense while the good times roll. The question is what will happen to the Me generation ― and to China ― when they end. For anyone who visited the workers’ paradise when it was still the land of Mao suits and communes, trying to reconcile that China to the one that young élites live in today is disorienting. When I first visited China in 1981, I went to the People’s Park in Shanghai with two traveling companions. Our obligatory Foreign Ministry &guide& ushered us through a special gate reserved for &foreign friends.& A knot of young Chinese had gathered outside. As we passed, a few made loud comments about the unfairness of having parts of the People’s Park reserved only for foreigners. One of my companions, a Mandarin speaker, agreed volubly in Chinese. Immediately a group of young Chinese men and women surrounded us and peppered us with questions that mixed naiveté and aspiration: Are there still slaves in America? Where did you learn to speak Chinese? Do all American families really have three cars? Can you help me go to America? That discussion took place 25 years ago, the span usually allotted to a single generation. The naive, wary Chinese I met that day could be the parents of the group gathered for the seafood feast in Beijing. But there is almost nothing about the appearance, attitudes, life experience, education or dreams for the future that those young people in the Shanghai People’s Park share with the likes of Vicky and her friends. The most obvious change is demographic. Because of China’s one-child policy, instituted in 1978, this is the first generation in the world’s history in which a majority are single children, a group whose solipsistic tendencies have been further encouraged by a growing obsession with consumerism, the Internet and video games. At the same time, today’s young Chinese are better educated and more worldly than their predecessors. Whereas the so-called Lost Generation that grew up in the Cultural Revolution often struggled to finish high school, today around a quarter of Chinese in their 20s have attended college. The country’s opening to the West has allowed many more of its citizens to satisfy their curiosity about the world: some 37 million will travel overseas in 2007. In the next decade, there will be more Chinese tourists traveling the globe than the combined total of those originating in the U.S. and Europe. Rather than fueling restlessness amongthe Me generation, however, the ease of travel seems to provide more evidence that the benefits of globalization can be had without radical change. There’s another reason for the lack of political ferment: it’s exhausting. Like anyone else, members of the Me generation are shaped by their experiences and those of their families. When their parents talk about the Great Leap Forward (a disastrous Mao campaign in the late 1950s that left 20 million to 30 million dead of starvation) and the subsequent chaos of the Cultural Revolution, they mostly tell horror stories that would put anyone off politics forever. That chapter in Chinese history, which officially ended with Mao’s death in 1976, is ancient history to today’ s young élites. They have known little but peace and an ever increasing economic boom. &We have so much bigger a desire for everything than [our parents],& says Maria Zhang, 27. &And the more we eat, the more we taste and see, the more we want.& One event that the Me generation does remember is the crackdown on student activists in Tiananmen Square in 1989. But to young Chinese like Maria and Vicky, the Tiananmen protests are less a source of inspiration than an admonishment. Were popular uprisings like Tiananmen allowed to continue, Vicky believes, they would have provoked a counterreaction by conservative forces and led to a return to fortress China: no more iPods, overseas shopping trips or snowboarding weekends. &I think that the students meant well,& says Vicky, who was 11 at the time and has only vague memories of what happened. But the crackdown that ended the demonstrations &certainly was needed.& Vicky embodies the shift in the priorities of young Chinese. She’s a purposeful, 29-year-old actuary who rarely smiles but loves nothing better than a party. She and her friends meet so regularly for dinner and at bars that she says she never eats at home anymore. As the pictures on her blog attest, they also throw regular theme parties to mark holidays like Halloween and Christmas, and last year took a holiday to Egypt. Encouraged by her new boyfriend Wang Ning, a keen snowboarder, Vicky decided earlier this year to take up the sport as well. To prime for it, she went to a mall in south Beijing that specializes in pricey, imported skiing gear. She chose a gleaming new snowboard made by the Colorado company Never Summer, emblazoned with colorful, psychedelic paintings of butterflies. Along with gloves, goggles and other paraphernalia, the new gear set her back about $700. When asked about the wisdom of spending a small fortune on equipment for a sport she may never take to, she says, &I believe you have to be fully prepared and equipped before you decide to start a new hobby.& Besides, she adds, &even if I don’t like skiing, think how nice [the gear] will look in the hallway of my apartment. Guests won’ know that I don’ use it.& Vicky smiles to signal she’ t t s joking. But she’s dead serious when she explains, over coffee at Starbucks, her lack of interest in politics. &It’ because our life is pretty good. I care about my rights when it comes to the quality s of a waitress in a restaurant or a product I buy. When it comes to democracy and all that, well ...& She shrugs expressively and takes a sip of her latte. &That doesn’t play a role in my life.& People like Vicky and her friends represent the leading edge, the trailblazers for a huge mass of young, eagerly aspirant consumers. All over China, young professionals like these banter aboutblogging, travel and work-life balance. (&Work hard, play harder,& says Vicky several times, repeating it in case she isn’ heard.) If they can’ afford to blow $700 on skiing gear, they want to t t be able to soon. And so for China’s leaders, placating the Me generation is seen as critical to ensuring the Communist Party’ survival. By 2015, the number of Chinese adults under 30 is expected to swell s 61%, to 500 million, equivalent to the entire population of the European Union. From issues of grave consequence to trivialities, the government has made clear that it will do whatever it takes to keep the swelling middle class happy. In Beijing, for example, newly prosperous residents are snapping up automobiles at a rate of 1,000 a day. The number of vehicles on the capital’ sclerotic s roads has doubled in the past five years, to 3 million. (By comparison, there are about 2 million vehicles registered in all of New York City.) But despite a grim pollution problem (Beijing air quality is among the world’s worst) that could embarrass China during next summer’s Olympic Games, the central government has made no move to curb vehicle purchases through regulation or taxes. And that, in turn, has made it harder for governments in the developed world to make progress in getting Beijing to do more to fight climate change. That’s just one example of the long-term impact of the government’s focus on the Me generation. In an article in the official mouthpiece People’s Daily published in February, Premier Wen Jiabao stressed that economic growth should take precedence over democratic reforms for the foreseeable future, a period that he appeared to indicate could stretch to 100 years. And yet for all its machinery of control, the party is vulnerable. Senior cadres from Wen on down have acknowledged in public that growing unrest in the provinces, as farmers clash with police over expropriated land or official corruption, could threaten the party’s grip on power. As a result, China’s rulers face a dilemma: the very policies that cater to the urban middle class come at the expense of the rural poor. So far the government is erring on the side of the rich. In March the government pledged to address problems plaguing the country’s peasants, such as access to medical treatment and schooling, health insurance and the disparity between urban and rural incomes. And yet a relatively small portion of the budget was set aside to address the concerns of the peasantry, with the bulk of spending still concentrated on stoking the booming economy. Even more telling was the passage of what was widely viewed as one of the most important pieces of legislation to be put forward in several decades of reform: the revised law on property ownership. Pushed through despite objections from old-line conservatives, the law for the first time gave equal weight to both state- and private-ownership rights. But a look at the fine print shows that the law only protects things dear to the rising middle class: real estate, cars, stock-market assets. Farmers, on the other hand, will still be unable to purchase their land and instead will be forced to lease plots from the government. If left unchanged, such policies could exacerbate China’s rich-poor divide and create conditions for tumultuous social upheaval. The test for China ― as the Me generation grows bigger, richer and more powerful ― will be whether it begins to push for the social and politicalreforms that are necessary to ensure China’s long-term prosperity and stability. How likely is that? Though they’re not exactly clamoring for free elections, members of the new middle class have shown a willingness to stand up to authority when their interests are threatened. Last October police in Beijing attempted to enforce rules limiting each household to a single, registered animal no taller than 14 in. (35 cm). The drive sparked a rare public demonstration by hundreds of well-heeled Chinese, mostly young dog owners. Within a month, according to Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post, President Hu Jintao had intervened, ordering the Beijing authorities to back off. It was the first time most Beijingers could remember a public protest drawing a direct intervention by China’s top leader. It was hardly Tiananmen, but a small triumph for free expression nonetheless. And if the West hopes to see China become democratic as well as prosperous, it will have to find ways to encourage modest breakthroughs like these, rather than expect sweeping change. At the Gang Ji Restaurant, where the dishes have been cleared and fresh fruit and more tea brought in, the mood is reflective. &We are lucky compared to our parents,& says Maria Zhang, who works as a membership manager in one of the capital’s most exclusive clubs. &My parents had nothing themselves. They lived for me.& Wang Ning, the snowboarder who runs his own successful advertising company, agrees. &We are more self-centered. We live for ourselves, and that’s good. We need to have the strength to contribute to the economy. That’s our power. The power to contribute. That’ how our generation is going to help the country.& China’ future will be defined s s by whether they realize that democracy can help China, too.Six friends out on a friday evening, the seafood plentiful, the conversation flowing. Maria Zhang ― big hoop earrings, tight velvet jacket and a good deal of meticulously applied makeup ― starts to describe an island that everyone is talking about off the east coast of Thailand. It has great diving, she says, and lots of Chinese there so you don't have to worry about language. Her friend Vicky Yang is hunched over a borrowed laptop, downloading an e-mail from a pesky client on her cell phone. An actuary at a consulting firm, Vicky needs to close a project tonight. While she phones a colleague, the dinner-table conversation moves on to snowboarding (&I must have fallen a hundred times&) to the relative merits of various iPods (&Shuffle is no good&) and the sudden onrush of credit cards in China. Silence Chen, an account executive with advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather in Beijing, tells the group he recently received six different cards in the mail. &Each one has a credit limit of 10,000,& he says, laughing. &So suddenly I'm 60,000 yuan richer!& The talk turns to China's online shopping business, before that is interrupted by the arrival of razor clams, chili squid and deep-fried grouper.一个周五的晚上，Maria 和五六个朋友聚在一起，吃海鲜、聊天。她戴着耳环，化着淡 妆，穿着夹克衫，和朋友一起享受着美妙的周末，聊着泰国东岸的海岛... Maria 说，在这 里根本不用担心语言障碍，这里有很多的中国朋友。她的朋友 Vicky 则借了一台笔记本电 脑，连到手机上下载着一封邮件，Vicky 是一家咨询公司的统计员，必须在今天晚上完成一 个项目的审查。这帮朋友的聊天内容从滑雪到 IPod，然后又转到了中国的信用卡，简直无 所不包。Silence Chen 在北京奥美广告公司担任客户经理，他说最近在邮箱里居然收到了 六张不同的银行卡，他笑着说：“每一张卡上都可以借贷 10000 元，我忽然就有了 60000 元啊！”等到红烧鱿鱼和油煎蛤端上桌的时候，他们又开始谈论中国的网上购物了。然而在中国，当几个年轻人聚在一起吃饭聊天的时候，有一个话题也许永远不会谈论， 那就是――政治。 中国的新一代与他们的上一辈完全不同， 他们的长辈们生活在一个政治火热的年代，每个人的一生几乎都和政治相关：文化大革命、改革开放、学 生 运 动以及后 来的肃清行动。 Silence Chen 说： “关于政治上的事情， 我们真的是无能为力， 所以我们‘不 谈政治’！”据统计，今天的中国，大约有 3 亿的年轻人处在 30 岁以下的年龄。他们是承上启下的 一代，就像一座桥，连接了毛泽东时代与改革开放时代。这一代是中国经济腾飞的驱动者和 受惠者：根据波士顿信用银行的统计，最近三年之间，这些年轻人的收入水平提高了 34%， 超过了任何一个年龄段的人群。这一代人崇尚实用精神、利己精神、不关心政治。中国共产 党只要能够维持经济的增长，他们就不会关心政治。你可以看到，这一代的中国人喝着星巴 克、穿着耐克鞋、漫不经心地写着博客，却对选举权、政治运行漠不关心。一个时尚杂志的 出版人洪晃说：“在他们的心里，一台游戏机远比民主政治重要的多！”随着中国新一代的成长，也影响了其他国家的对华政策。西方的汉学家曾经预言道：中 国经济的增长， 必然带来政治的民主化！ 汉学家 James Mann 更是在自己的书 《The China Fantasy》中指出：随着中产阶级的兴起，必然给中国带来民主的政治气氛，进而发展成一 个美国式政体的国家。但是，中国的“我世代”却彻底粉碎了这个预言。作为经济发展的受惠 者，中国的年轻人似乎更喜欢维持现状。种种情况表明，民主政治不会很快在中国出现。中国共产党的确犯了很多的错误，也没 有能很好地改善中国贫民的生活， 但如果西方国家的领导人不能原谅这些错误， 在同中国进 行外交的时候，就极有可能会被认为是一个挑衅者！一些中国的观察家认为：之所以年轻人 不希望进行社会改革，是因为他们不想让中国失去目前的发展局面。P.T. Black 目前正在 为上海 Jigsaw 公司做一个市场调查，他说：“现在中国年轻人对政府的满意度比较高，也 为中国的崛起而感到自豪。”问题是：当中国的这一代年轻人成长起来的时候，当如今的领 导阶层退出了历史舞台的时候，中国又会发生什么呢？ 毛泽东时代的中国是工人的天堂、是公社的世界，如果你在那个时候到过中国，那你就很难 想象今天的中国，一个年轻人渐入主流的国家。我第一次到中国是在 1981 年，政府部门强 制地派出了导游指引我们，当时我和两个旅伴去了上海的“人民公园”，有一个专供“外国朋 友”进出的门，我们就是从那里进入人民公园的。当我们进去的时候，有一些中国年轻人聚在一起对我们指指点点， 有几个人还高声地宣泄着自己的不满， 感觉这样对外国人的优待非 常不公平。我的一个朋友会说汉语，他用汉语随声附和着这些年轻人。马上，他们聚集过来 围住我们， 问我们一些幼稚而天真的问题： 美国还有奴隶么？你是在哪儿学到的汉语？美国 的每个家庭都有三辆汽车么？你能带我去美国么?上述的经历发生在 25 年前，刚好过了一代人的时间。当年问这些幼稚问题的年轻人， 如今已经是为人父母。他们的儿女们，正是上文中提到的，一起吃海鲜的那群年轻人。虽然 仅仅是 25 年，但是再看今天中国的年轻人，无论是外表、态度、生活经验、教育和理想， 已经与他们的父辈大不一样，甚至一点影子也找不到。这一代人最大的不同是：他们是独生子女！因为中国在 1978 年开始实行计划生育，他 们也是世界范围内第一代独生子女。这一代人是倾向自我的一代，是被物质文化所迷惑、崇 尚消费的一代，是跟着互联网和电子游戏长大的一代。然而，这一代又是受过良好教育的一 代，与他们的父辈相比，他们更具有国际化的视野。在文化大革命年代，有一群人被称作是 “失落的一代”，虽然有很少的人通过奋斗进入大学。但是，今天的中国，大约有四分之一 20 岁的年轻人可以进入大学读书。中国的对外开放政策，更可以市民们的好奇心：2007 年，大约 3700 万人出国旅游。在未来的 10 年，预计出国旅游的人数将超过美国和欧洲的 总和！相对于“我世代”如此剧烈的改变，出国旅游似乎更能看出全球化给中国带来的变化和 利益。中国的政治稳定还有一个原因： 政治已经让人疲惫不堪了。 中国的年轻一代是在他们的 家庭中成长起来的，受家庭的影响很深。他们的父辈经常谈论“大跃进”、“文化大革命”，这 些事情充满了恐怖，这也足以让这一代人远离可怕的政治。1976 年毛泽东去世后，中国的 这段恐怖历史就结束了，但对于年轻一代，那段历史就像是天方夜谭。他们只是知道后来和 平年代的改革开放和经济增长。 岁的 Maria Zhang 说： 27 “我们总是渴望比父辈得到更多： 更丰富的食物、更多的尝试、更广阔的视野。我们想要的更多！”中国新一代知道的唯一一件大事是 1 9 8 9 年的事情。但对于这些年轻人来说，那件 事情更多是一个警告。一个中国年轻人告诉我：如果再来一场运动，他将奋力阻止！因为那意味着没有了 Ipod、 没有了出国旅游、 没有了周末的滑雪。 岁的 Vicky 当年只有 11 岁， 29 对那件事情只有一些模糊的记忆，她说：“我觉得那些学生的本意是好的，但是很快结束那 场运动是非常必要的！”Vicky 代表了这一代中国人的优越感。她是一个保险精算师、目标坚定、不苟言笑却喜 欢周末聚会。 她经常和朋友们一起出来吃饭、 泡酒吧， 甚至从来不在家里吃饭。 每次聚会后， 她都会在自己的博客上贴图片，纪念自己的假日生活，包括万圣节和圣诞节。去年，她甚至 去了一趟埃及。 Vicky 的新男朋友 Wang Ning 热心滑雪运动，在男朋友的鼓动下，她上半年去滑雪了。为 了滑雪，她专程去了北京南的一个大型购物广场，专门采购了高档的、进口的滑雪装备。她 选购了美国产的滑雪板，颜色艳丽，还绣着蝴蝶的图案。包括手套、滑雪镜等一套装备，花 费了 700 美元。我问她为什么会购置这些装备来准备一项自己毫无经验的运动时，她开玩 笑地说：“如果你要开始进行一个新的业余爱好，你必须准备的充分点。即使我不喜欢滑雪， 把这些装备放在房间里看着，也是一件很爽的事情。朋友们也不会知道我是否用过它！”但 是提起政治，她马上显出无趣的神情，她说：“这是因为我们的生活已经很好了！我关心的 权利是我的消费权、我吃饭时候餐馆的服务水平、我所购产品的质量。即使我们国家进入了 真正的民主政治时代，它也不会对我的生活产生任何影响。”Vicky 和她的朋友们是中国新一代的领先者，是有很强消费能力的消费者。中国的年轻 更热衷于博客、旅行、工作与生活的平衡（努力工作――疯狂玩乐）。他们中有的人现在还 无法负担 700 美元的滑雪装备，但是他们很快就可以负担了。对于中国的领导人来说，安抚这一代年轻人是中国共产党生存下去的关键。2015 年， 在中国成年人中，预计 30 岁以下的年轻人将达到 5 亿，占 61%，相当于整个欧盟的人口。 政府最重要的事情就是让这个膨胀起来的中产阶级生活愉快。 在北京， 富裕的市民们平均每 天购买 1000 辆汽车。过去的五年里，北京公路上的汽车数量增长了一倍，达到了 300 万 辆！（纽约的汽车数量只有 200 万）虽然极速膨胀的人口问题已经困扰着 2008 北京奥运 会，但是中央政府并没有出台任何税率措施来限制汽车数量的增长。最近政府的一个措施可能对中国年轻一代产生影响：周二出版的官方报纸《人民日报》 发表了一篇文章，温家宝强调：在不久的将来，经济的发展将优先于民主政治的改革，经济 优先将持续 100 年。对于整个国家机器来说，党非常容易受到攻击。温家宝以及其他中高 级干部普遍承认，中国省区的动荡进一步加剧，比如因为官员腐败和土地征用，农民与警察 发生摩擦，这都将威胁到党的执政地位。基于以上理由， 中国的领导人将面临一个两难的抉择： 如果要维护城市中产的利益保持 稳定，将持续损害农民的权益，站在富裕者的一方将使错误扩大。三月，政府发表声明，要 着重解决农民的教育、医疗保险、城乡收入差别等问题。财政预算也将拨一部分用来解决农 民问题，但大部分预算还将用于驱动经济持续增长。如果中国的政策持续不变， 将导致中国的贫富差距进一步加剧， 进而为社会动荡带来隐 患。有一个问题将考验中国：当新一代的年轻人变得更加富有，最终成为政治权利拥有者的 时候， 他们是否会全力推动社会和政治改革呢？如果不进行变革， 中国就失去了繁荣和稳定 的基础。 虽然中国的中产阶级不会去要求自己的自由选举权， 但是一旦当他们的权利受到威 胁，他们会竭力维护自己。中国的未来将取决于：中国的新一代是否能够意识到民主政治能真正地帮助中国。 （完RelatedPhotosChina's Me Generation More Related? ?China’s Himalayan Reach In China, There’s Priceless, and for Everything Else, There’s Cash?A Media Circus with Chinese CharacteristicsThe one subject that doesn't come up ― and almost never does when this tight-knit group of friends gets together ― is politics. That sets them apart from previous generations of Chinese élites, whose lives were defined by the epic events that shaped China's past half-century: the Cultural Revolution, the opening to the West, the student protests in Tiananmen Square and their subsequent suppression. The conversation at Gang Ji Restaurant suggests today's twentysomethings are tuning all that out. &There's nothing we can do about politics,& says Chen. &So there's no point in talking about it or getting involved.& There are roughly 300 million adults in China under age 30, a demographic cohort that serves as a bridge between the closed, xenophobic China of the Mao years and the globalized economic powerhouse that it is becoming. Young Chinese are the drivers and chief beneficiaries of the country's current boom: according to a recent survey by Credit Suisse, the incomes of 20- to 29-year-olds grew 34% in the past three years, by far the biggest of any age group. And because of their self-interested, apolitical pragmatism, they could turn out to be the salvation of the ruling Communist Party ― so long as it keeps delivering the economic goods. Survey young, urban Chinese today, and you will find them drinking Starbucks, wearing Nikes and blogging obsessively. But you will detect little interest in demanding voting rights, let alone overthrowing the country's communist rulers. &On their wish list,& says Hong Huang, a publisher of several lifestyle magazines, &a Nintendo Wii comes way ahead of democracy.& The rise of China's Me generation has implications for the foreign policies of other nations. Sinologists in the West have long predicted that economic growth would eventually bring democracy to China. As James Mann points out in his new book, The China Fantasy, the idea that China will evolve into a democracy as its middle class grows continues to underlie the U.S.'s China policy, providing the central rationalefor maintaining close ties with what is, after all, an unapologetically authoritarian regime. But China's Me generation could shatter such long-held assumptions. As the chief beneficiaries of China's economic success, young professionals have more and more tied up in preserving the status quo. The last thing they want is a populist politician winning over the country's hundreds of millions of have-nots on a rural-reform, stick-it-to-the-cities agenda. All of which means democracy isn't likely to come to China anytime soon. And that poses challenges for Western policymakers as they try to engage China without condoning the Communist Party's record of political repression and its failures to improve the lives of the country's rural poor. China watchers say the Me generation's reluctance to agitate for reform is driven in part by a reluctance to tarnish China's moment in the sun. &They are proud of what China has accomplished, and very positive about the government,& says P.T. Black, who conducts extensive marketing research for a Shanghai-based company called Jigsaw International. The political passivity of China's new élite makes sense while the good times roll. The question is what will happen to the Me generation ― and to China ― when they end.
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